"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh

You get the gist. FBI Director James Comey provided an extensive list of Hillary Clinton's violations of law at a press conference today, and then summed it all up by saying that "no reasonable prosecutor" would recommend an indictment. I guess a "reasonable prosecutor" is one who decides that he'd like to keep his job, no matter what.

I can well imagine the shade of Boss Tweed looking down (or up, as the case may be) at the Clintons and shaking his head in admiration and envy.

John Hinderaker at Powerline thinks that Comey put devastating evidence in the hands of Hillary's opponents without interfering in a political matter. "In essence, Comey said today that if American voters are dumb enough to elect as president a woman who was “extremely careless” in handling “very sensitive, highly classified information,” so that it is “possible that hostile actors gained access to” her email account, and then lied repeatedly and shamelessly about what she had done, it’s on the voters. I suspect that Comey thinks he has done what he can or should do to blow the whistle on Hillary."

His colleague, Paul Mirengoff, thinks Comey is acting for reasons similar to those of Chief Justice John Roberts in upholding Obamacare. "I believe Roberts reached this decision because he didn’t want unelected judges to strike down the will of the legislature on a matter as momentous as Obamacare. He didn’t want the Supreme Court to place its thumb on the scales to that degree.

"I’m less clear about Comey’s motive, but I suspect it was similar. Recommending the prosecution of a major party’s presumptive nominee for president is an enormous intrusion on the political process. My guess is that Comey was simply unwilling to go that far."

There's another thing. If the FBI publicly recommended prosecution the legal process might shut down public discussion of Hillary's actions during the campaign. After all, it would be before a Grand Jury (I presume) then in trial. It could hardly be finished before the election. If Hillary is elected, then what? Does her VP replace her while she's being tried? Does she assume office until found guilty, then must either resign or, if she is obdurate, be impeached? Would Obama pardon her the day before he leaves office (a la Bill and Marc Rich)? He could say something like he does not want the will of the voters flouted by this partisan prosecution.

Anyone ever play the game Junta? We now live in La Republica de los Bananas.

I am pessimistic that the voters will turn against Hillary for the footling reason that she committed treason by carelessness with national security and violated the law to hide her crooked shenanigans from the public. Practically everybody knows she is a serial liar, though not good at it like Bill is. Most people who vote for Dems will vote for her because she promises them free stuff paid for by somebody else. They could care less about national security, so long as they get their goodies. Trump cannot count on the full support of the GOP, especially its donors, so he will be short of campaign money while Hillary is swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.

Paul Mirengoff explains why this result favors Hillary."When two atrocious candidates are competing, the winner is likely to be the one who keeps her head down, organizes effectively, and blitzes the airwaves with ads attacking the other candidate. The loser is likely to be the candidate who constantly places attention on himself.

"The key here is that Clinton is running for president because she craves power. Trump is running because he craves attention. Thus, Trump inevitably will be the candidate who constantly focuses attention on himself."

Short of a miracle, we're suck with Hillary. Bismarck used to say "There is a special Providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America." I wish we would not make Him work so hard.